American defense company specializing in autonomous systems, Anduril, has unveiled the Ghost-X, an autonomous drone for greater mission flexibility in challenging environments.
The Ghost-X autonomous drone is a highly modular, flexible, and mission-critical unmanned aircraft system. This drone includes over 1,000 Ghost flight hours of operational feedback from the UK Ministry of Defense and in various environments, including multiple combat theatres.
Anduril Ghost-X is built for a preliminary survey to gain information, security, and force protection purposes and is designed to deliver autonomy for every mission.
The Ghost platform was designed to adapt to user needs with a flexible, rail-centric design. Ghost-X incorporates this vision by integrating new propulsion, payloads, and software to meet operator needs in challenging environments worldwide.
The system is integrated with Anduril’s Lattice software platform to automate mission planning, airspace management, and flight operations to reduce the operators’ mental load and training burden.
Ghost-X’s upgraded propulsion system enables a dual battery configuration to extend the flight time by up to 75 minutes. Also, it boasts a total payload capacity of 9 kg (20 lbs). Additionally, it has a range of up to 25 km (15.5 miles) with an optional long-range communications kit.
The new Ghost-X UAS is built on the modular architecture of the Ghost platform to provide additional payload configurations. Moreover, this drone is equipped with a range of new technologies, including new electro-optic and infrared gimbals, encoded laser options, automated frequency switching, and a vision-based navigation module for flight capabilities without reference to the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) or GPS.
These new capabilities contribute to a layered system of hardened navigation and communications to maximize resiliency in low-connectivity and a highly hostile operational environment with heavy surveillance.
Anduril Ghost-X drone can host a multi-payload configuration with enhanced flight performance and durability at higher take-off weights. Its ability to incorporate new sensors, communications, navigation, and other modular mission payloads makes it a powerful baseline asset for integrating rapidly evolving technologies.
